It may not come as much of a surprise given the team’s trade for Nick Foles and his sizable contract, but Bears GM Ryan Pace has declared that there will be an “open competition” between Foles and incumbent Mitchell Trubisky for the starting quarterback job (Twitter link via Brad Biggs of the Chicago Tribune).

Those were probably not easy words for Pace to say, as he famously gave up a good deal of draft capital in the 2017 draft to move up one spot — from No. 3 overall to No. 2 overall — for the right to select Trubisky. After a disappointing rookie campaign, Trubisky seemed to be coming into his own with a quality sophomore effort in which he posted a 95.4 quarterback rating and threw for 24 touchdowns against 12 interceptions en route to a Pro Bowl nod.

But Pace’s vindication would be short-lived, as Trubisky had just 17 TDs against ten INTs in 2019, and the Bears’ talented D couldn’t make up for the offense’s shortcomings. The Bears went 8-7 in Trubisky’s 15 starts and finished .500 on the season, leaving them short of the postseason. To be fair, Trubisky did battle through a number of injuries, but Chicago still thought it was necessary to bring in legitimate veteran competition for its fourth-year signal-caller.

Foles, meanwhile, signed a four-year, $88MM deal with the Jaguars last March after leading the Eagles on a legendary ride to a Super Bowl title at the end of the 2017 season and more playoff heroics following the 2018 campaign. Unfortunately, he broke his clavicle in the first game of the 2019 season and did not play well enough after returning from injury to keep his job over sixth-round rookie Gardner Minshew. The 31-year-old is not as good as he looked during his Super Bowl run but is better than his disappointing effort in Jacksonville, and even competent QB play may be enough to get Chicago back to the postseason.

The Bears still have a decision to make on Trubisky’s fifth-year option, the deadline for which is next month, but Pace said he is not yet ready to make that call (Twitter link via Biggs). Per head coach Matt Nagy, Trubisky will be the first QB in the huddle whenever the team reconvenes, but the competition will be transparent and honest and the players will split reps equally (Twitterlinks via Biggs).

Trubisky can be a competent starter in this league but I think Foles wins this competition, however I think Foles struggles with the same thing trubisky did last year and that’s offensive line, it was terrible last year and the bears did nothing to help it in free agency at all, Robert Quinn will probably be worth his contract however that doesn’t make him an offensive lineman, Jimmy Graham was money thrown into the trash

An Open competition for a Bears roster spot? Where have I heard that before? How are they going to accomplish that with only 3 QB’s on the roster? Pace is slacking off – he needs to find 5 additional QB’s soon so that the QB competition will go as smoothly as last year’s K competition.

You want eight QBs in camp competing for the job? You think there are five more QBs that are starter-quality just sitting out there that the Bears could afford? You think there are enough snaps to go around? Are you going to play all eight of them in each preseason game?

Trubisky is still on his rookie contract. The Bears spending on QBs is nowhere near the top of the league – they are currently in 10th place. Their positional spending on QBs is about *half* the amount spent by the Colts (currently 1st on QB spending). The Colts have a lot of dead money from the Luck and Hoyer contracts along with the big contracts to Rivers and Brissett

Talk about apples and oranges. Nagy obviously went overboard with the kicker competition but Pineiro is decent. They’re showing face with this competition because they can’t stop babying Trubisky. Foles will be the starter.

A QB competition may provide the media with an entertaining sideshow but the Bears offense won’t improve in any meaningfully way until they address the real problem which is the offensive line. They need to follow the approach the Eagles took when they had Bradford and Sanchez as QBs. Yes, the Eagles drafted Wentz but he was just along for the ride as a vastly improved Philly OL was the driving force that got them a championship 2 years later.